Philosophers Educational Posters & Prints, “Q...-R...-”
individuals who made contributions to the study of knowledge itself.

Jean Rostand

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Bertrand Russell

Jean Rostand, Photographic Print

Jean Rostand
b. 10-30-1894; Paris, France
d. 9-4-1977

Jean Rostand, an experimental biologist who philosophized about the responsibilities of humanity and our place in nature, was also a science writer and activist against nuclear proliferation and the death penalty.

His father was playwright Edmond Rostand most noted for his play Cyrano de Bergerac.

Jean Rostand quotes ~
• “A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us worthy of using it.”
• “It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.”
• “I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.”
• “Kill a man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone, and you are a god.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
b. 6-28-1712; Geneva, Switzerland
d. 7-2-1778; France

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher, author and composer, based his philosophical works of the principle of the natural goodness of humanity and the corrupting influence of civilization and society. Rousseau believed individual liberty was crushed by division of labor and called for a social contract investing power in governing structures. Rousseau's novel Emile: or, On Education, describes the stages of child development with his conception of the evolution of culture.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau quotes:
• “The noblest work in education is to make a reasoning man, and we expect to train a young child by making him reason! This beginning at the end; this is making an instrument of a result. If children understood how to reason they would not need to be educated.”
• “All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.”
• “Base souls have no faith in great individuals.”
• “Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.”
• “I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.”
• “However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.”
• “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.”
• “The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.”
• “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”
• “You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.”

• The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Bertrand Russell
b. 5-18-1872; Wales
d. 2-7-1970; Wales

Social reformer and pacifist Bertrand Arthur William Russell was a philosopher, logician, mathematician, and historian. He was awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”.

Bertrand Russell quotes ~
• “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
• “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither . . . over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.”
• “A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”
• “Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.”
• “If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”
• “Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”
• “There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”

• The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell